Restoration and education for 36 trafficked girls

Ahina* is from a large family in the Sindupalchowk district. Her family was poor. Her father was a carpenter and her mother a housemother. Ahina started working as a maid from a very young age. She had to work very hard and she was only a child. Because she was very unhappy at the house she worked, she went back home. She was very happy to be reunited with her family, but this happiness didn’t last long. The earthquake destroyed her home. She started to look for a job in order to support her family financially. One lady in her village lured her to go to India for a nice job. The lady said that she had also worked there for many years and that she has relatives in India who can support her to find a job.

Ahina was very sad because of the financial problems of her family and decided to go with the lady to India. After reaching India, they went to a relative of the lady. The lady said that she was going to buy some food for them and then never came back. Later she found out she had been sold to a brothel. She was physically and mentally abused in the brothel. During three years and four months of her life, she has been sold into different brothels. She was forced to have sex with twenty-five customers a day. Sometimes, she had to satisfy 60 clients on one day.

She shared: “I can’t describe the pain in words, that place was hell on earth.”

One day, she was rescued by the rescue team of Shakti Samuha and the Indian local police. The police referred her to a government shelter in India. From here, she was repatriated to Nepal with the support of Shakti Samuha. Currently, she is staying at Half Way Home. She was traumatized when she arrived at Half Way Home, but she is doing much better now. She received psychosocial counseling and she is going to school.

*Name was changed for safety reasons.